Let Us Try to Understand

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Abraham Lincoln

I was born and raised in a small, Texas town. It’s about an hour southwest of Fort Worth. I grew up in a conservative church – my early years surrounded by The Greatest Generation. We were a people of overalls, fresh peaches, and home-grown squash. Summer meals consisted of fried Spam, cut up onions, tomatoes, cantaloupe, butter beans, and cornbread. Don't tell me your new country songs aren't about me. We sat on the porch eating corn on the cob, played 42, and didn’t get too involved in the happenings of the world. What we had revolved right in front of our noses.

Not too much happened back then. Things, mostly, rocked along like expected.

I learned to sing alto. To speak and be polite to everyone.

A small town, primarily white folk, no rich people.

My grandparents were staunch, conservative Democrats. Which seems an oxymoron in 2022…

I didn’t ever think to challenge the way I was raised. Their ideals were automatically my ideals. Their views, my views. I didn’t think outside the stencil. But I was always a watcher and thinker. My mind rarely ceases, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

My mom, however, has always been a reader. Of everything. Not romance – to my knowledge, she didn’t get into that genre. Even now, she is always reading about something interesting. No topic is off limits, especially if she wants to know more about it. Her mind paved the way for mine. She told me her mom always said, “Let’s go look it up.” That one sentence had so much to do with who I am today.

The first time I was challenged in my thinking was in an American Literature class in college. It was taught by an older Native American man – long hair, beads, t-shirt, jeans, and Birkenstocks – every day. He was already so cool in my mind. Our book was so thick it could have easily been used as a weapon. He told us at the beginning of class that he was going to make us uncomfortable and challenge our thinking, and that if we didn’t like it, we could leave now. To my shock, many grabbed their bags and left. Well, he was right. He selected poems and short stories that made us think. We were uncomfortably challenged almost every single day. The day we read about a boat that couldn’t get to shore and he stood at the front of the class and cursed God, I made myself as small as I could in my seat. I was sure he was about to meet God face to face… I walked out of that class knowing about the paradigm. About rules of society. About the unfairness of them. It was the first time I ever felt that way.

Those thoughts never left me, yet, for some time, I lived my life like I didn’t know about them. The pressure from society is enormous. And it took a long time for me to shed that and truly celebrate myself.

In my 20s, I had a great time with friends. I played through my job.

In my 30s, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” whispered to me every day – I had merged into the highway, settled into the paradigm, and was measuring out my life in coffee spoons.

My brain kicked into high gear in the middle of my 30s. I started really questioning why things were the way they were. I read and taught books like The Giver and wondered if I was really only seeing in Black and White. A curious mind had been passed down by the women in my family. I started wanting to know the why behind everything. I started reading more and more. Thinking more and more.

Now, smack in the middle of my 40s, divorced, living alone, my mind is electric, charged by the very air in this country.

Our country has become so divided. I never expected this. When I was born, the Civil War was about 150 years out, World War II was about 30 years, Civil Rights was about 15, the Vietnam War was only a few years back, and my mom and dad still carried the shaggy, long hair of the 60s. We even had a van with a sun painted on the side. My grandparents were still hardcore Roosevelt people. Democrats. Conservative, yet, harmless. They still referred to people from the North as Yankees. As a small child, I corrected my grandmother every time she said the word "negro." She never said it in a harsh tone, it was more of a label, but I had no tolerance of it, even small.

I said the pledge of allegiance. I had no feelings when I saw an American Flag. It was the symbol of where I lived. I grew up believing this was the greatest and rightest country in the world.

In my 30s, I stopped saying the pledge. I started thinking it was a creepy thing to do. Why am I pledging allegiance to a flag? And what does that really mean?

Now, 2022. What the hell? As a student of history, I have seen the rise and fall of several countries. I always knew the United States of America wasn’t immune.

I am prone to think that humans are essentially the same at their core. There is a herd mentality. A need to belong to a group of like-minded people. There are patterns in society.

Knowing how I felt as a child in this country, and how I feel now – I am saddened. For example, when I see someone with an American Flag on their car or even their house, I feel that they’re Radical Right Conservatives. Racists. White idiots. I don’t like it, and I could be completely wrong – probably am. See? Even I can automatically think one-sided... But it’s sad that that thought even hits me. Then I think about seeing it even 20 years ago, and it didn’t feel the same. What happened?

I’ve been hearing people argue ONE side of things for years now. Why isn’t anyone arguing both sides at once? Why are things only black or white? Do we have so little tolerance for each other that we can’t meet in the middle?

Why don’t we want to understand? Why aren’t we listening for that sole purpose?

I bring up The Giver – now a banned book… to illustrate this point. Read it if you haven’t. The society there takes out all the bad memories, but the good memories have gone as well. They cannot see color. Everything is predictable. Sameness, it’s called. Easy. Unchallenging. Comfortable.

I’ve been scrolling through Facebook, looking at people who have posted one-sided arguments. It’s constant, and it frustrates me, on both sides. Sure, take a stance. I certainly have one. But be sure you understand why to its core. Make sure you understand the other side just as well as your own.

Have your opinions, yes. But be sure you settle into that opinion having researched the “other side” potentially even more than your side. Think critically. Don’t be an ass about it, either.

“There’s a fine line between arguing with an idiot and two idiots arguing.”

Casey Click

Be sure you can argue both sides intelligently and based on real facts, not "TikTok facts." Not regurgitated facts. There is a time and place for all social media, and I’m thankful for it, but we have to get our hands on real information and be able to discern what is real and what is fake.

You jumping on a bandwagon doesn’t do anyone any good. It is merely picking black or white, and it's continuing the problem of division - Sameness. Stay in the gray. Think in the gray. Be brave. That’s what it takes to think – bravery. It’s scary and challenging.

We are living in a very scary time. It has a very 60’s, tumultuous feel to it. I used to ask my class – Which one is a patriot and why? Now, make an argument that both are.

The word patriot has been thrown around a lot today, as well. I could use the same exercise:

I feel so strongly about each set, and I think one is more "patriotic" than the other. But I could argue both ways, if needed. I could sit down and listen to someone, and try to understand, who felt that the oppposite was more "patriotic" than the other one.

When you step back, so much of it doesn’t make sense. There are both sides to every story, each filled with biases and propaganda. No one wants to be wrong. No one wants to get shut down or challenged. But this is part of life. Being challenged is a gift. You cannot or will not grow if you don’t get uncomfortable.

Before you think about “which side” I have lodged myself, I want you to realize that I do not believe in political parties. I think they’re a manmade invention that promotes division. Chew on that a while.

I’m lodged on the side of critical thinking. There is great need for the “left” and “right” in our nation. We need both sides. We need balance. But we cannot continue to see in black and white. We cannot keep surrounding ourselves with ideas and people that are just like ours. We have been searching for pats on the back for way too long. We cannot grow if that is all we want. This life isn’t about searching to be right. Ironically, that feels really wrong to me.

I very much have an opinion on Roe v. Wade. On Black Lives Matter. On women's voice and rights. On how to handle Covid. The environment. Education. LBGTQ. Gun laws. Mass shootings. On how to treat one another.

I root for the underdog. I root for the oppressed, the minority, the misunderstood. I root for knowledge and understanding. I root for grace and mercy. I root for love. I root for being Christlike in each and every situation.

I am not here to preach my view. It wouldn't sway you, that much, I know. I am here to ask you to think on both sides. To seek understanding. To listen. To hear. No matter how small or large the situation.

A poem woke me up at 2:45 this morning.

Let Us

CJ Click

Let us walk a million miles

with the hope to understand.

Let us take each other’s eyes and see.

Let us clean the dirt out of our shoes

and help each other out.

Let us take a step toward something scary –

A different way to think.

Let us see the people as a human

with the right to think differently than me.

Let us lift the shades of black and white

and look around our world.

We are broken, dying on the vine.

We are all just people, trying to survive our lives.

We are different.

Unique.

Amazing.

Let us walk a million miles

with the hope to understand.